Santa Rita Hills Update

Back In December of 2007 I wrote about a then emerging AVA in the Central Coast area of California, the Santa Rita Hills. In that article we featured Alma Rosa as a wine to watch… Fast forward almost five years and on my most recent visit to California, I decided to check-in at a handful of Santa Rita Hills wineries and see how they were progressing. We circled through the area on a near-perfect summer day and stopped at five wineries. The following is a report on the findings:

First up we stopped in at Mosby Winery (www.mosbywines.com), a lovely property situated about one mile south of Buellton on Santa Rosa Road. The winery was started in 1976 by Bill Mosby, who is also the winemaker and currently has approximately 46 acres under vine, planted mostly to Italian varietals. The literature states that the property “provides a perfect growing site for the various vines due to a multitude of microclimates.” Louise Smith, our perfectly gracious host in the tasting room was an absolute joy. We tasted through the current offerings of wine and Louise happily shared her passion and insight. The winery produces approximately 4,000 to 5,000 cases, almost all estate grown. While we were not able to taste any of the grappa and brandy produced at the winery due to legal issues, we were able to bring one back with us and it was simply lovely with layers of delicate fruit essence and a remarkably smooth finish. The good news for my fellow Massachusetts readers… Gilbert Distributors in Boylston, MA carries the wine – the bad news is that only the Lucca (not tasted), Pinot Grigio, Dolcetto and Sangiovese are in the Beverage Journal… worth a call to find out about the other wines…

Next up, we traveled further up Santa Rosa Road to Alma Rosa Winery (www.almarosawinery.com), the winery featured in our 2007 piece, owned by the lovely Richard and Thekla Sanford. I won’t go into all the gory details of the history behind the winery, for that you can read my original piece from 2007 (www.musingsonthevine.com/MusingsNewsletterV6_4.pdf). That said, the winery has a reverence that belies the humble, rustic surroundings. Chris Burroughs was our host in the tasting room – little did we know that we were amongst Hollywood royalty (the web site notes “Chris is of Sideways fame”) – Chris is down-to-earth and quietly passionate about the Alma Rosa wines… Our original love for the wines in 2007 continues forward into 2012 – you cannot visit the area without stopping in a trying these wines. To me they represent the great potential for Pinot Noir in the Santa Rita Hills, long ago originally envisioned by Richard Sanford himself…

Next we stopped a little further up Santa Rosa Road at LaFond Winery and Vineyards (www.lafondwinery.com). Lafond has a lot going on with a Bistro and Marketplace in Montecito, another winery in Santa Barbara proper, as well as connections to an Upstairs Art Gallery and a Clothing Line (Wendy Foster). Kathleen, our hostess in the Santa Rita Hills tasting room, a transplant originally from New Hampshire was friendly and congenial. The wines were nice and in Massachusetts they are distributed by Atlantic Importing Company, although the Beverage Journal only lists the 2008 SRH Pinot Noir.

We decided to head up towards Santa Maria where we planned on staying the night (I’ll be blogging about the historic Santa Maria Inn shortly…) and we stopped at Foley Estates Vineyard and Winery (www.foleywines.com) on Highway 246. The winery is situated on the beautiful Rancho Santa Rosa vineyard, featuring a thoroughly modern tasting room and events center that offers truly spectacular vistas of the neighboring mountain ranges, coastal oaks and contoured hillside vines. On our visit a lovely couple that was scoping out wedding venues tasted alongside us, captivated by the surroundings as much as the wine. Susan Pratt was our wonderful hostess, providing great information about the wines, as well as the surrounding area. Susan was such a warm and inviting ambassador. The winery actually precedes the establishment of the Santa Rita Hills AVA (2001), with two major vineyards (Rancho Santa Rosa and Rancho Las Hermanas) providing the grapes for all of their wines.

Our last stop for the day was Babcock Winery and Vineyards (www.babcockwinery.com ) located on a picturesque hill overlooking well-manicured rows of vines on highway 246. The vineyard property goes back to 1978, with the winery following in 1983. The web site boasts of selling fruit to well-known vintners Rick Longoria, Fred Brander and Jim Clendenen during the early days of growing. John was our affable host in the tasting room, taking us through their Terrior Tasting.